More poisoned fruit of globalization

Eight people thought to be German nationals were killed in a suspected drone strike in northwestern Pakistan, two Pakistani officials said Monday.

Let's see how it translates in globalization terms: eight German citizens, probably of mixed Middle East origins (Yemen, Marocco, Saudi Arabia, Somali etc. come to mind) killed in Pakistan by Hellfire missile launched from a Predator drone, both produced in USA (General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Lockheed Martin), some of it based on Israeli design, most of it, probably, stuffed with Taiwanese and Chinese electronics and whatnot.

 This is what I call big G...

Howard Arenstein, Orly Azoulay - Katz (the Israeli angle) and a question

What the heck - don't they build basements in US of A anymore?

Sheikh Daoud Bessis, RIP

Sheikh Daoud Bessis of Daliyat al-Karmel, who fought the Nazis during World War II and helped rescue Jewish prisoners, died over the weekend at the age of 96.

The full story of the Sheikh's odyssey.

120 retired officers know: someone knocks their nukes off

The latest deluge of the articles on the UFO subject is focused on the uncanny knack of the E.T.s to disable the military nuclear installations all over the world. While the paraphernalia of the aliens continues to show the bewildering variety of shapes (saucer, fat cigar, triangle, even a orange or reddish pulsating oval-shaped object) and approaches, the main point in the latest articles was that the aliens can easily switch off whole launching sites, effectively disabling the mighty WMDs of nuclear nations.

Of course, everyone understands by now that it's not the usual "classic" foes:

Hastings said that because similar incidents had occurred in the Soviet Union - as attested to in declassified KGB files - it was not the Russians messing with us or us messing with the Russians.

Even if there is an element of flippancy in this:

"We can also rule out the Samoans," he added.

I wouldn't discard any suspect that quick, and Samoans should not be waived away in this manner too. However, due to the disturbingly high level of histrionics surrounding the nukes, the Elders have decided to come out with an explanation. No more Aliens ate my Pershing! headlines, please.

Yes, it is the Elders who meddled with your nukes, dear Americans, Brits, Russians, Chinese, French etc*. For many years we have checked (and rechecked again, as is the manner of our field operations dept.) our POND (POrtable Nuke Disabler) before it was concluded that it works as prescribed and can effectively destroy all known nuclear weapons without the operator moving his/her backside from his/her office in ...

Of course you may want to know why did we have to organize the whole megillah with flying saucers, triangles, cigars and whatnot. Why the crop circles, dripping molten metal and indentations in the forest? Why, in short, all the crapola that keeps Spielberg and many others busy for so many years and sells Prozac like there is no tomorrow?

Especially when the POND's size is about that of an iPod. Well, to start with - we needed some distraction. It certainly helps when the senior officer on duty gets several phone calls in his bunker from guards stationed on the surface, complaining about UFOs, while all nuclear missiles under his command are blinking out of existence...

And who will listen to him the next day, when half of his soldiers are on tranquilizers and the second half cannot agree whether the objects in the sky were circular, square and what kind of lights did they carry... Not to mention the crop circles. Really, let's not mention the crop circles - maybe the first two or three were fun, but after that it's a major pain in one's backside...

So, the whole UFO geschaft is being discarded by the Elders as of now. No more flying saucers, strange pulsating lights, no more audio-visual shows. And if you happen to see some strange object skulking around your neighborhood and lighting the sky in all kinds of ways, you better call the air force.

Like they care...

(*) The case of Andorran arsenal mentioned by Jams baffles us too, frankly. It could be our own installation of several thousand years ago, but what with the state of our archives and general laxity of records...

Open letter to Isi Leibler

Update: I am happy to tell that, upon exchange of e-mails with Mr Leibler, the issue at hand was resolved to everyone's satisfaction. The mention of liberals was a slip up and not an intentional insult.

And as an aside: it takes a mensch to own up to the mistake, and Isi Leibler is certainly a mensch!

Dear Mr Leibler,

In your JP article Candidly Speaking: Islamophobia and the Jews you have twice mentioned an entity you call "liberals" in the same breath with "Muslims". According to the claim you make re liberals in cahoots with Muslims, they spearhead "the greatest revival of global anti-Semitism since the Middle Ages". The only other mention of liberals in the article is found in this sentence:

It is macabre to observe the alliance between liberals and jihadists who represent the antithesis of everything the Left purports to represent.

This sentence indicates that you have equaled "liberals" with "the Left". There are no more mentions of liberals or explanation why liberals found themselves on the same side (of global anti-Semitism) as Muslims.

According to the definition of classical liberalism, it means:

a political ideology that developed in the nineteenth century in Western Europe, and the Americas. It was committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets. It drew on the economics of Adam Smith, a psychological understanding of individual liberty, natural law and utilitarianism, and a belief in progress. Classical liberals established political parties that were called "liberal", although in the United States classical liberalism came to dominate both existing major political parties.

Rereading this definition, I can say that I sincerely hope that you, Mr Leibler, belong to or, at least, sympathize with this brand of ideology. I certainly do.

I can only guess that you have (mistakenly) conflated liberals with the Left. There are indeed some left-wing liberals, however not many of them are anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic. It is true that the Left these days, by and large is anti-Israeli, although it's not true regarding all Lefties, and one should be careful when ascribing anti-Semitism to every left-leaning person.

However, going back to liberals, seeing them spearheading a revival of modern anti-Semitism is quite a wide miss, not to mention a grave and unjust accusation to throw at a generally good group of people.

I think that for a man of your caliber and achievements, such a sweeping (and simply wrong) allegation against a large group of individuals is beneath you and urge you to correct or retract it.

With regards.

Haveil Havalim #285 — Back to the Beginning

By Frume Sarah. A good one.

Rick Sanchez is out - long live Rick Sanchez!

Here is the interview that got* this super-dumbo finally out of the CNN building.

Huffpost have done a sterling job in getting some choice quotes. Like this one:

The conversation began with Sanchez decrying "elite, Northeast establishment liberals" who "deep down, when they look at a guy like me, they see a guy automatically who belongs in the second tier, and not the top tier.

Second tier? The man's ego is still overinflated... I seriously doubt there is a tier for a person that monumentally stupid as Rick here...

As for them Jooz:

Very powerless people... [snickers] He's such a minority, I mean, you know [sarcastically]... Please, what are you kidding? ... I'm telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they -- the people in this country who are Jewish -- are an oppressed minority? Yeah. [sarcastically]

Yeah, Rick - next time you decide to snicker sarcastically, have you hankie handy. Just in case, you know...


(*)At least this is the official version. I claim that this post did it.

Ahmadinejad to throw rocks at Israeli border. And our response?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to throw a rock at Israel to demonstrate his hatred on his planned trip to Lebanon, London-based paper Al-Quds al Arabi reported on Tuesday.

Aluf Benn, a wise guy from Haaretz, gives a mocking advice to Bibi:

Ahmadinejad will pay his first visit to Lebanon and devote an entire day to a tour of the southern part of that country. He will visit sites where Hezbollah waged battles against Israel and, according to one report, he will also pop over to Fatima Gate, just beyond the border fence at Metula. The route is known, the range is close and it is possible to send a detail across the border to seize the president of Iran and bring him to trial in Israel as an inciter to genocide and Holocaust denier.

Bibi is quiet about his plans so far. On the other hand, Avishy Cohen, a private of the reserve paratroopers unit which is scheduled for guard duty at the border fence near Metula, predicted:

I wouldn't even fart in his general direction. Mahmoud / Shmahmoud - big deal!

Intercourse judge in nutty condom stunt

Now, don't blame me for that headline - blame the author of this article. I hope that it will become clearer after you read this:

A judge from the US village of Intercourse has been charged - after handing out condoms hidden inside acorns. Isaac Stoltzfus, 58, was charged with disorderly conduct after two women complained to police, reports the Patriot-News.

There is indeed a village of Intercourse in Pennsylvania's Amish country. It does have a judge and his name is indeed Isaac Stoltzfus. And there exists a document that shows the charge. As for the reasons for such a strange behavior of the Hon. Isaac Stoltzfus (that's besides the natural stress of being a judge in a place named Intercourse): there could be some explanation:

Stoltzfus, running as a Republican, was reelected last year to a six-year term on the bench, where he earned $80,927 in 2009.

So - Republicans, ACORNs, etc...who knows?

Tal El-Melouhy, a Syrian blogger, dies in jail

According to this (Hebrew) article, Syrian female blogger Tal El-Melouhy died in jail. Tal El-Melouhy was a pro-Palestinian blogger, criticising the French initiative for peace between Israel and Syria.

A missing 19-year-old Syrian blogger, Tal El- Melouhy, is being held in a prison near the capital Damascus on espionage charges, local media outlets reported Tuesday. El-Melouhy is a detainee at Duma women's prison, some 20 kilometres north-west of the city, according to the dp-news website. El-Melouhy's family had been unable to confirm her whereabouts since she went missing 10 months ago, but they suspected that she had been detained by Syrian authorities.

Oh look: there's a mouse in my bread!

Details.

Oops... the management apologizes for using a wrong picture with the article.

Palestine: Breaking the silence about rape

Ami Isseroff has written an article that may (with your help) break the conspiracy of silence. It's important enough to be copied in its entirety here.

I am now going to break the silence about what are very probably egregious human rights violations in Palestine.
But first, you must excuse these personal and intimate questions: Are you seeking dialog and solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians? Are you European or American, female, between the ages of 17 and 40?
Uh, er, are you a virgin? (I did warn you that this is going to get personal and intimate).

If you are looking for an adventure of a new and different kind, then you should probably head for the Palestinian territories, where you can do a real service to the oppressed Palestinians and at the same time get first hand experience of solidarity and intimate dialog with Palestinian Arabs, who, it seems, rape American and European female activists.

The stories of rape and sexual molestation of foreign peace activists by Palestinians first appeared in the dovish Haaretz several months ago. Back in July, Avi Isacharoff asked, Are the Palestinians silencing the attempted rape of U.S. peace activist? and then he reported: PA, protest leaders hushed up attempted rape of U.S. activist. That was back in July. Incredibly, nobody noticed these ‘juicy’ stories. The attempted rape incident he reported took place several months before that, probably in March or April in a village called Umm Salmona:

“Omar Aladdin, who had been arrested three months ago over suspicions he had attempted to rape the U.S. citizen, was subsequently released after agreeing to apologize to the young woman. However,  Haaretz had learned that representatives of both the popular protest movement and the PA have since applied pressure on the American peace activist as to prevent her from making the story public.

It was not the only incident. An undated article in Hebrew, by Roni Aloni Sedovnik reported on Betrayal by the left of female peace activists who were sexually assaulted. Aloni-Sedovnik reported an additional case, the ‘severe sexual assault’ of an Israeli peace activist at Sheikh Jarrah. The victim tried to complain, but this time it was Israeli peace activists who shut her up:

“However,  after heavy and unfair pressure from the organizers of the Sheikh Jarrah protest, she withdrew her complaint.

“As if that is not enough to make one appalled at the hypocritical morality and loss of direction, the situation became more serious recently, when the activists organizing the the demonstrations in Bil’in and Sheikh Jarah asked female demonstrators to wear ‘modest dress’ according to the code accepted in Arab villages: Hijab, Burqa or other head covering…

“How did we not hear about this? After all, the phenomenon is known in a broad group of peace activists, so what can we learn from the hushing up of this topic by the media?…

‘Peace’ groups such as Ir Amim that are demonstrating in Sheikh Jarrah and Bilin get U.S. tax deductible donations through the NIF, which supposedly advances ‘women’s rights’ and ‘democracy.’
The two cases are apparently only the tip of  the iceberg.Yehudah Belo wrote, under the dramatic headline, Female leftist activists are raped day after day, night after night about the alleged rape of Scandinavian girls:

“I know of such rape cases from women who are not Jewish: a female European leftist activist, a female Red Cross volunteer and a young Arab woman from Yafo. I met the three of them during reserve service. I met with each of them afterwards… they told me what happens there, in the Palestinian villages, far from any observing eye.”
“It is not a matter of rape to satisfy lust. They are done systematically in order to impregnate the girl, and then to marry her, after she converts to Islam. Of course, we know about this method from girls who underwent a similar process inside Israel and escaped to Europe, but it is hard to escape from the [Palestinian] territories.  Sometimes these women,  some of whom are already older women, are not allowed to leave their homes unaccompanied, in order to prevent their escape. If someone doubts my words…please, check the statistics for entries and departures, and you will discover that a large portion of female leftist activists did not leave the country. Everyone knows about it, but nobody dares to talk about it…
“I ran into a few Norwegian girls married to Palestinians. They are not happy. Their lives were destroyed. Their families have broken off contact with them. They have no place to return to. They are deep in the raising of children and wish to die. I assume there are women in that situation in their own countries and in Israel too. Not everyone is happy, but one might think that a person who grew up in Oslo will have trouble adjusting to life in the refugee camps. She is no longer allowed to be free, to fly about the world as she wishes, or even to be a leftist activist.

Belo pleaded with Israeli womens’ and leftist organizations to help, but so far, none has done so.
The cause was also taken up by Israeli blogger Nimrod Avissar, in a Hebrew article called Thunderous Silence.
These Israeli reporters and bloggers do not all fit the stereotype of right wing settler supporters. Haaretz generally is sympathetic to Palestinians and so is their reporter and analyst Avi Issacharoff. Nimrod Avissar lives in Ramat Gan, not in a settlement. The reports cannot be dismissed. When rumors about Israeli ‘war crimes’ and illegal organ transplants surfaced, they were plastered all over respected journals such as the New York Times and Time magazine, as well as Scandinavian journals, though there was probably not a word of truth to them. Judge Richard Goldstone wrote thousands of pages and made the gravest accusations based on flimsier evidence, causing an upheaval in international justice as well as media coverage. But almost nothing at all has been published in international media about these rapes. No activists took up the cause of these poor women. There were two articles about the rape issue in a respectable journal, but they were ignored. Additional material accumulated, but that too was ignored.
Most belatedly, after several months, the matter was exposed in Israel National News in an article by Gil Ronen in English, called Arabs Harass Female ‘Peace’ Activists; Left Silences Victims.The problem, however, is not to find the culprits for the silence, but to break the silence.
Perhaps ‘leftists’ or Palestinians can be blamed for suppressing these stories, but nothing prevents others from writing about them, as nothing prevented anyone from writing about Carlos Chavez, the Ecuadoran volunteer killed by the Hamas, or Angelo Frumartino, the Italian “peace” activist who came to help the Palestinians and was killed by Palestinian terrorists. Nothing prevented anyone from writing, but almost nobody wrote it seems. A lone blogger noted the attempted rape of the American activist, reported in Haaretz. It is fruitless to blame others for our own apathy and incompetence.
It seems that the mythical Zionist ‘PR’ machine is just that:a myth. If nobody knows these stories, but everyone knows who Rachel Corrie is and who Muhamad al Dura is, we have only ourselves to blame.

Over the years, I have heard plenty of stories, not just about Israeli or European women being raped, but about Arab Christian girls being raped, sometimes with the cooperation of, or on the initiative of, the Fatah Police. I have also seen those earnest Scandinavian Lutheran girls, recruited for the causes of ‘peace’ and dialog,’ standing in a room full of Palestinian young men. What could they have in common?? Why were there no Scandinavian young men? Draw your own conclusions. If it was ‘dialog’ and ‘solidarity’ that they sought, they came to the right place, it seems. I have also seen ominous warnings about ‘modest dress.’
Don’t the charges at least merit further investigation and publicity? After all, if the same charges were leveled at Israelis, there would be a barrage of publicity, regardless of whether they had any truth to them or not. There are numerous specious allegations that Israeli soldiers raped Palestinians. There was even a ‘study’ that ‘proved’ that Israeli soldiers (including the non-Jewish ones) do not rape Palestinians because IDF soldiers are racists.
Surely it is time to break the silence? Won’t Women in Black or Code Pink or perhaps Gila Svirsky’s group (CWP – Coalition of women for Peace) organize a tumultuous demonstration demanding an international investigation?? It is understandable if they keep mum about these stories. But where is the army of Zionist bloggers and journalists who are supposed to publicize these issues? Where are the organizations who take money to supposedly defend Israel? Why is everyone silent??

At least there should be an investigation. Surely, all progressive people will welcome an investigation into the status of women in the West Bank, which is no doubt commendable in every way..
Won’t someone publicize this cause? Won’t someone speak out about this injustice? Won’t someone tour campuses in the United States and Scandinavia to warn the innocents before it is too late?? Won’t someone come forward and break the silence??


Ami Isseroff

El Al passenger buys ticket to L.A., but ends up in New York

I have slavishly copied the headline of that article. The article in question busily exposes what they call "series of errors at national carrier".

A passenger with a ticket for an El Al flight to Los Angeles mistakenly boarded a flight to New York at Ben-Gurion International Airport, and neither he nor the crew discovered the mix-up until the plane had landed in the United States.

However, they skip what would seem to be the main problem: isn't it advisable to set up a list of minimal requirements for a person who requests a passport? Let alone one who orders a ticket?

Tyler Clementi RIP - murdered by Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei

As sure as if they held the gun.

PM silent amid world criticism of moratorium’s end

Criticism from one side and adoration from another (admittedly, far smaller and dwindling as time goes) - this is all a matter of record by now, and I will not be going into the rights or wrongs of ending the freeze.

One thing, however, is absolutely clear: no one could blame Bibi in being prepared to the slightest degree for the current situation.

So what? Another day at the office...

The rest is explained here: Abbas Looks For A Way to End Peace Talks--With A Smile On His Face.